The possessions of the clan Monro or Munro,
situated on the north side of Cromarty Firth, were generally know in the Highlands by the
name of Fearrann Donull or Donald's country, being so called, it is said, from the
progenitor of the clan, Donald the son of O'Ceann, who lived in the time of Macbeth. The
Munroes were vassals of the Earls of Ross, and may be regarded as a portion of the native
Scottish Gael. According to Sir George Mackenzie, they came originally from the north of
Ireland with the Macdonalds, on which great clan "they had constantly a
depending". Their name he states to have been derived from "a mount on the river
Roe", county Derry. Clan tradition, probably not more to be relied upon than
tradition generally, hold that they formed a branch of the natives of Scotland who, about
357, being driven out by the Romans, and forced to take refuge in Ireland, were located
for several centuries on the stream of the Roe, and among the adjacent mountains. In the
time of Malcolm II, or beginning of the 11th century, the ancestors of the Munroes are
said to have come over to Scotland to aid in expelling the Danes, under the above named
Donald, son of O'Ceann, who, for his services, received the lands of East Dingwall in
Ross-shire. These lands, erected into a barony, were denominated Foulis, from Loch Foyle
in Ireland, and the chief of the clan was designated of Foulis, his residence in the
parish of Kiltearn, near the mountain called Ben Uaish or Ben Wyvis. So says tradition.

Another conjecture as to the origin of the name Munro is that, from having acted as
bailiffs or stewards to the Lord of the Isles in the earldom of Ross, they were called
"Monrosses". Skene, as we have said, ranks the clan as members of a great family
called the Siol O'Cain, and makes them out to be a branch of the clan Chattan, by
ingeniously converting O'Cain into O'Cathan, and thus forming Chattan. Sir George
Mackenzie says the name originally was Bunroe.

Hugh Munro, the first of the family authentically designated of Foulis, died in 1126. He
seems to have been the grandson of Donald, the son of O'Ceann above mentioned. Robert,
reckoned the second baron of Foulis, was actively engaged in the wars of David I and
Malcolm IV. Donald, heir to Robert, built the old tower of Foulis. His successor, Robert,
married a daughter of the Earl of Sutherland. George, fifth baron of Foulis, obtained
charters from Alexander II. Soon after the accession of Alexander III, an insurrection
broke out against the Earl of Ross, the feudal superior of the Munroes, by the clans Ivor,
Talvigh, and Laiwe, and other people of the province. The earl having apprehended their
leader, and imprisoned him at Dingwall, the insurgents seized upon his second son at
Balnagowan, and detained him as a hostage till their leader should be released. The
Munroes and the Dingwalls immediately took up arms, and setting off in pursuit, overtook
the insurgents at Bealligh-ne-Broig, between Ferrandonald and Loch Broom, where a
sanguinary conflict took place. "The clan Iver, clan Talvigh, and clan Laiwe",
says Sir Robert Gordon, "wer almost uterlie extinguished and slain". The earl's
son was rescued, and to requite the service performed he made various grants of land to
the Munroes and Dingwalls.

Sir Robert Munro, the sixth of his house, fought in the army of Bruce at the battle of
Bannockburn. His only son, George, fell there, leaving an heir, who succeeded his
grandfather. This George Munro of Foulis was slain at Halidonhill in 1333. The same year,
according to Sir Robert Gordon, although Shaw makes the date 1454, occurred the remarkable
event which led to a feud between the Munroes and Mackintoshes.

Robert, the eighth baron of Foulis, married a niece of Eupheme, daughter of the Earl of
Ross, and queen of Robert II. He was killed in an obscure skirmish in 1369, and was
succeeded by his son, Hugh, ninth baron of Foulis, who joined Donald, second Lord of the
Isles, when he claimed the earldom of Ross in right of his wife.

The forfeiture of the earldom of Ross in 1476, made the Munroes and other vassal families
independent of any superior but the crown. In the charters which the family of Foulis
obtained from the Scottish kings, at various times, they were declared to hold their lands
on the singular tenure of furnishing a ball of snow at Midsummer if required, which the
hollows in their mountain property could at all times supply; and it is said that when the
Duke of Cumberland proceeded north against the Pretender in1746, the Munroes actually sent
him some snow to cool his wines. In one charter, the addendum was a pair of white gloves
or three pennies.

Robert, the 14th baron, fell at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. Robert More Munro, the 15th
chief, was a faithful friend of Mary, queen of Scots. Buchanan states, that when that
unfortunate princess went to Inverness in 1562, "as soon as they heard of their
soveriegn's danger, a great number of the most eminent Scots poured in around her,
especially the Frasers and Munroes, who were esteemed the most valiant of the clans
inhabiting those countries". These two clans took for the Queen Inverness castle,
which had refused her admission.

With the Mackenzies the Munroes were often at feud, and Andrew Munro of Milntown defended,
for three years, the castle of the canonry of Ross, which he had received from the Regent
Moray in 1569, against the clan Kenzie, at the expense of many lives on both sides. It
was, however, afterwards delivered up to the Mackenzies under the act of pacification.

The chief, Robert More Munro, became a Protestant at an early period of the Scottish
Reformation. He died in 1588. His son, Robert, sixteenth baron of Foulis, died without
issue in July 1589, and was succeeded by his brother, Hector Munro, seventeenth baron of
Foulis. The latter died 14th November 1603.

Hector's eldest son, Robert Munro, eighteenth chief of Foulis, styled "the Black
Baron", was the first of his house who engaged in the religious wars of Gustavus
Adolphus, in the 17th century. In 1626, he went over with the Scottish corps of Sir Donald
Mackay, first Lord Reay, accompanied by six other officers of his name and near kindred.
Doddridge says of him, that "the worthy Scottish gentleman was so struck with a
regard to the common cause, in which he himself had no concern but what piety and virtue
gave him, that he joined Gustavus with a great number of his friends who bore his own name.
Many of them gained great reputation in this war, and that of Robert, their leader, was so
eminent that he was made colonet of two regiments at the same time, the one of horse, the
other of foot in that service". In 1629 the laird of Foulis raised a reinforcement of
700 men on his own lands, and at a later period joined Gustavus with them. The officers of
Mackays and Munro's Highland regiments who server under Gustavus Adolphus, in addition to
rich buttons, wore a gold chain round their necks, to secure the owner, in case of being
wounded or taken prisoner, good treatment, or payment for future ransom. In the services
of Gustavus there were at one time not less than "three generals, eight colonels,
five lieutenant-colonels, eleven majors, and above thirty captains, all of the name of
Munro, besides a great number of subalterns".

The "Black Baron" died at Ulm, from a wound in his foot, in the year 1633, and
leaving no male issue, he was succeeded by his brother, Hector Munro, nineteenth baron of
Foulis, who had also distinguished himself in the German wars, and who, on his return to
Britain, was created by Charles I a baronet of Nova Scotia, 7th June 1634. He married
Mary, daughter of Hugh Mackay of Farr, and dying in 1635, in Germany, was succeeded by his
only son, Sir Hector, second baronet, who died, unmarried, in 1651, at the age of 17. The
title and property devolved on his cousin, Robert Munro of Opisdale, grandson of George,
third son of the fifteenth baron of Foulis.

During the civil wars at home, when Charles I called to his aid some of the veteran
officers who had served in Germany, this Colonel Robert Munro was one of them. He was
employed chiefly in Ireland from 1641 to 1645, when he was surprised and taken prisoner
personally by General Monk. He was subsequently lieutenant-general of the royalist troops
in Scotland, when he fought a duel with the Earl of Glencairn. Afterwards he
joined Charles
II in Holland. After the Revolution he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces in
Scotland.

Sir Robert Munro, third baronet of Foulis, died in 1688, and was succeeded by his eldest
son, Sir John, fourth baronet, who, in the Scottish convention of estates, proved himself
to be a firm supporter of the Revolution. He was such a strenuous advocate of
Presbyterianism, that, being a man of large frame, he was usually called "the
Presbyterian mortarpiece". In the Stuart persecutions, previous to his succession to
the title, he had for his adherence to the covenant, been both fined and imprisoned by
the tyrannical government that then ruled Scotland. He died in 1696. His son, Sir Robert,
fifth baronet, though blind, was appointed by George I high sheriff of Ross, by
commission, under the great seal, dated 9th June 1725. He married Jean, daughter of John
Forbes of Culloden, and died in 1729.

His eldest son, Sir Robert, twenty-seventh baron and sixth baronet of Foulis, a gallant
military officer, was the companion in arms of Colonel Gardiner, and fell at the battle of
Falkirk, 17th January 1746.

In May 1740, when the Independent companies were formed into the 43d Highland regiment
(now the 42d Royal Highlanders), Sir Robert Munro was appointed lieutenant-colonel, John
Earl of Crawford and Lindsay being its colonel. Among the captains were his next brother,
George Munro of Culcairn, and John Munro, promoted to be lieutenant-colonel in 1745. The
surgeon of the regiment was his younger brother, Dr James Munro.

The fate of Sir Robert's other brother, Captain George Munro of Culcairn, was peculiar. He
was shot ont he shores of Loch Arkaig among the wild rocks of Lochaber, on Sunday, 31st
August 1746, by one of the rebels named Dugald Roy Cameron, or, as he is styled in
tradition, Du Rhu. After the Rebellion, an order was issed to the Highlanders to deliver
up their arms. Dugald, accordingly, sent his son to Fort-William with his arms to be
delivered up. When proceeding down Loch Arkaig, the young man was met by an officer of the
name of Grant, who was conducting a party of soldiers into Knoydart, and being immediately
seized, was shot on the spot. His father swore to be revenged, and learning that the
officer rode a white horse, he watched behind a rock for his return, on a height above
Loch Arkaig. Captain Munro had unfortunately borrowed the white horse on which Grant rode,
and he met the fate intended for Grant. Dugald Roy escaped, and afterwards became a
soldier in the British service.

Sir Robert left a son, Sir Harry Munro, seventh baronet and twenty-fifth baron of Foulis,
an eminent scholar and a M.P.

His son, Sir Hugh, eighth baronet, had an only daughter, Mary Seymour Munro, who died
January 12, 1849. On his decease, May 2, 1848, his kinsman, Sir Charles, became ninth
baronet and twenty-seventh baron of Foulis. He was eldest son of George Munro, Esq of
Culrain, Ross-shire (who died in 1845), and lineal male descendant of Lieutenant-general
Sir George Munro, next brother to the third baronet of this family. He married - 1st, in
1817, Amelia, daughter of Frederick Browne, Esq, 14th dragoons; issue, five sons and two
daughters; 2d, in 1853, Harriette, daughter of Robert Midgely, Esq of Essington,
Yorkshire. Charles, the eldest son, was born in 1824, married in 1847, with issue.

The military strength of the Munroes in 1715 was 400, and in 1745, 500 men. The clan
slogan or battle cry was "Caisteal Foulis na theine" - Castle Foulis in flames.

MUCH Controversy has been excited
regarding the origin of the name Munro. Clan
tradition, detailed by Sir George MacKenzie, has it that
the race, with others of the original Celtic
inhabitants, was driven out of Caledonia by the
Romans in the middle of the fourth century. Settling
in County Derry in Ireland, they took the name from
a mount on the River Roe there, and on returning to Scotland in the reign
of Malcolm II. to help in expelling the Danes, they retained the name.
According to the same tradition the lands on which they settled, formerly
known as East Dingwall, received the name of Foulis from association
with the River Foyle in Ireland. The whole story seems, to say the least,
far-fetched. Sir George MacKenzie says the name was originally Bunroe, but
there is nothing to confirm the statement. It seems much more likely that
the cognomen had the same origin as the name of Montrose on the east coast
of Scotland, which was originally known as Munros—" the hill
promontory or "the moss
promontory." This would agree with the location
of the territory of the chiefs on the south of Ben Wyvis in Ross-shire,
the "promontory country," on the northern shore of the Cromarty
Firth.

The first known of the race is said to have been a
certain Donald O’Ceann, of the time of Macbeth. The patronymic O’Ceann,
Skene, in his Highlanders of Scotland, ingeniously converts into
O’Cathan, and so makes out that the race is a branch of the great Clan
Chattan or Siol O’Cain. It seems much more likely, however, that the
name Donald O’Ceann is simply what it says—Donald, son of the Chief.
The same word is found in the name of the contemporary Malcolm III., who
was known as Ceannmore or Canmore, "great Chief," by his Gaelic
subjects. The Munroes are also known among the Highlanders as Clan Rothich
or Roich.

From this Donald O’Ceann,
its first possessor, the territory on the north side of Cromarty Firth
came to be known as Fearran Donuill, or Donald’s Country. Foulis, or
Fowlis, the actual seat of the Chief from then till now, is a local and
personal name common in Scotland. There are parishes of Fowlis.Easter and
F’owlis-Wester in Perthshire, and a family of Fowlises or Foulises were
the owners from whom the ancestor of Lord Linlithgow in the reign of
Charles I. acquired by marriage the valuable mining property of Leadhills
in Lanarkshire.

Hugh Munro of Foulis, who
died in 1126, is believed to have been a son of George, son of Donald O’Ceann.
His son Robert, who is reckoned to have been the second laird or baron of
Foulis, took part in the wars of David I. and Malcolm IV., and died in
1164. It was Robert’s heir, Donald (died 1192) who built the old tower
of Foulis, and Donald’s successor, another Robert, married a daughter of
the Earl of Sutherland. It was to George, son of this pair, that,
according to Nisbet’s Heraldry, William, Earl of Sutherland, in
the reign of Alexander II. granted a charter which runs, "carissimo
et fidelissimo cons sanguineo, Georgio Munro de Foulis."

On the introduction of the
feudal system, however, the Munroes had secured their possessions by
accepting charters, not from the Earls of Sutherland but from their more
immediate neighbours, the Earls of Ross. One of these charters, about
1350, expressly states that the lands of Easter Fowlis had belonged to the
Munroes in free possession from the time of Donald O’Ceann. The reddendo
mentioned for the lands of Pitlundie was a pair of white gloves or three
pennies if required.

Meanwhile the friendship
with the Earl of Ross had involved the Munroes in serious trouble. In 1282
the clans Iver, Talvigh, and Laiwe, with others, had rebelled against the
Earl, the latter seized their leader and imprisoned him at Dingwall, and
the rebels, to safeguard their chief, carried off the Earl’s second son
from Balnagown, and held him as a hostage. Thereupon, according to Sir
Robert Gordon, " the Munroes and the Dingwalls, with some others,
gathered their forces and pursued the Highlanders with all diligence, so
overtaking them at Beallach na Croig, betwixt Ferrindonnel and Loch Broom.
There ensued a cruell fight, well foughten on either side. The clan Iver,
clan Talvighe, and clan Laiwe were almost utterlie extinguished and slain,
but the Munros had a sorrowful victory, with great loss of their men, yet
carrjed back again the Earl of Ross his son. The Laird of Kildun was ther
slain, with seven score of the surname of Dingwall. Divers of the Munroes
were slain in this conflict, and there were killed eleven of the house of
Foulis, that were to succeed one another, so that the succession fell unto
a child then lying in his cradel." Thus ended "carrissimus et
fidelissimus Georgius Munro de Foulis."

Robert, the infant in the
cradle, fought in Bruce’s army at Bannockburn. His only son, George, was
slain in the battle, but left an heir, another George, who fell at Halidon
Hill in 1333.

In 1341, while Robert, the
son of this chief, was still an infant, occurred an event which would seem
to show that the Munroes were certainly not regarded as kinsmen by the
Captains of the Clan Chattan. John Munro, the "tutor " or
guardian of Foulis, was treated with some indignity by the inhabitants of
Strathardle as he passed through that country. For this his clansmen
eagerly desired revenge, and the tutor accordingly raised a force of 350
picked men, with which he raided the Strathardle lands. As he returned
past the Mackintosh seat of Moy, Mackintosh demanded his toll of the
plunder. The tutor offered a share, but Mackintosh demanded nothing less
than half. "Wherewith John Munro would not hearken nor yield, but
goeth on his intended journie homeward, MacIntosh conveens his forces with
all diligence, and follows John Munroe, whom he overtook at Clagh ne Hayre,
besyd Inverness, hard by tife ferry of Kessack. John, perceaving MacIntosh
and his company following, then bard at hand, sent fiftie of his men home
to Ferrindonald with the spoil, and encouraged the rest to fight. So there
ensued a cruell conflict, wherein MacIntosh was slain, with the most part
of his companie. Divers of the Munroes were also ther killed. John Munroe
was left as deid in the field, and was taken up by the Lord Lovet, who
carried him to his house, where he was cured of his wounds, and wes from
thenceforth called John Bacclawigh becaus he wes mutilat of one of his
hands all the rest of his days."

Robert Munro of Foulis, the
eighth laird, who was in tutelage at the time of this conflict, and was
slain in an obscure skirmish in 1369, married a niece of Euphemia,
daughter of the Earl of Ross and second wife of King Robert II. By this
marriage the Munro chiefs became nearly related, not only to the royal
house of Stewart but to Robert II.’s grandson, Donald, Lord of the
Isles, who married the sister of the last northern Earl of Ross, and
claimed the earldom in her right. When, therefore, the Island Lord set out
to make good his claim at the battle of Harlaw in 1411 he was joined by
Hugh Munro, the next laird of Foulis, his wife’s cousin. Hugh Munro’s
successor, George, was killed in one of the conflicts of these wars of the
Isles and the Douglases in 1454, but when towards the end of the century
the troubles ended with the forfeiture of the earldom of Ross and the ruin
of the last Lord of the Isles, the Munroes escaped scatheless, and indeed
rose in rank by having their vassalage transferred to the Crown. The fresh
charters which they then obtained from the King declared that they held
their lands on condition of furnishing a snowball at midsummer if
required. This condition they could easily fulfil, as snow was to be found
in some of the mountain corries of their property all the year round.

William, second in
succession to the chief slain in 1454, died, like so many of his
ancestors, by violence in 1505. His successor, Hector Munro of Foulis,
married Katherine, daughter of Sir Kenneth MacKenzie of Kintail, and their
son Robert, the next chief, fell fighting against the English aggression
at the battle of Pinkie in 1547. His son, Robert More Munro, the fifteenth
chief, took the part of Queen Mary against the Earl of Huntly. To judge
from the narrative of George Buchanan, the clan was now regarded as one of
the chief in the north. When Huntly’s henchman refused the Queen
admission to her castle of Inverness in 1562, the famous Latin historian
wrote, " When they heard of the Queen’s danger a great host of the
Scottish notables, some under pressure, some of their own accord, attached
themselves to her, foremost among them being the Frasers and Munros, among
the most valiant of these tribes."

In view, probably, of the
help afforded to the Queen’s cause and his own on that occasion, the
Regent Moray in 1569 entrusted the castle of the canonry of Ross to Andrew
Munro of Milntown, and this doughty castelan defended the stronghold for
three years, at the cost of many lives, against the attacks of the
MacKenzies, with whom the Munroes were then at feud. it was only under the
later act of pacification that the castle was finally delivered up to the
MacKenzies.

Robert More Munro, the
chief of that time, already mentioned, became a Protestant in the early
days of the Reformation, and this fact practically decided the future
politics of the clan. It was probably in consequence of this that Robert
Munro. the eighteenth chief, remembered in Highland tradition as "the
Black Baron," proceeded in 1626 to join the Protestant forces of
Gustavus Adolphus. He and six other officers of his name went over with
the Scottish corps raised by Sir Donald MacKay, first Lord Reay, head of
the other chief Protestant clan of the north, and three years later he
raised a regiment of 700 men on his own lands. According to Doddridge,
"The worthy Scottish gentleman was so struck with a regard to the
common cause, in which he himself had no concern but what piety and virtue
gave him, that he joined Gustavus with a great number of his friends who
bore his own name. Many of them gained great reputation in this war, and
that of Robert, their leader, was so eminent that he was made colonel of
two regiments at the same time, the one of horse, the other of foot."
In the service of Gustavus there were at one time no fewer than "
three generals, eight colonels, five lieutenant-colonels, eleven majors,
and above thirty captains all of the name of Munro, besides a great number
of subalterns."

The Black Baron died from a
wound in the foot at Ulm in 1633. His brother Hector, who succeeded as
nineteenth Laird of Foulis, also distinguished himself in the wars of
Gustavus, and was created a Baronet of Nova Scotia by Charles I. in 1634.
His son, another Sir Hector, dying in Holland in his seventeenth year in
1651, was succeeded by his distant kinsman, Robert Munro of Obsdale. Sir
Robert was also a veteran of the wars of Gustavus Adolphus. In our own
Civil Wars he served Charles I. chiefly in Ireland, from 1641 to 1645,
when he was surprised and taken prisoner personally by General Monk. In
the Royalist army he had one son a Major-General, two of the rank of
Colonel, and one a Captain. He was afterwards Lieutenant-General of the
Royalist troops in Scotland, where he fought a duel with the Earl of
Glencairn. He afterwards joined the young Charles II in his exile in
Holland, and at the Restoration was made commander-in-chief of the forces
in Scotland. He is generally understood to have been the original of
Dugald Dalgetty in Scott’s Legend of Montrose. He died before the
Revolution in 1668. His eldest son, Sir John Munro, the fourth baronet,
was such a strenuous supporter of Presbyterianism, that, being of massive
frame, he was known as "the Presbyterian mortar-piece." He had
been fined and imprisoned as a Covenanter, and at the Revolution he
naturally took the side of William of Orange. His son, Sir Robert, though
blind, was made High Sheriff of Ross by George I. in 1725. During the
risings of 1715 and 1719 his clan did much to check the activities of the
MacKenzies and other Jacobite clans. This chief further influenced the
future policy of the clan by marrying Jean, daughter of John Forbes of
Culloden.

With these antecedents his
eldest son, another Sir Robert, naturally took the Government side against
the Jacobite risings of his time. He was Member of Parliament for
Ross-shire. When the Independent Companies were, in May, 1740, formed into
the 43rd Highland Regiment, afterwards famous as the 42nd or Black Watch,
he was appointed lieutenant-colonel, the Earl of Crawford and Lindsay
being Colonel. Sir Robert’s next brother, George Munro of Culcairn, was
one of the captains, while another was John Munro, who became
Lieutenant-Colonel in 1745. The chief’s youngest brother, Dr. James
Munro, was surgeon of the regiment. In the Jacobite rising of 1745 the
Munroes, following their chief, took the side of the Government, and
played an important part in keeping the remoter northern counties for King
George. The campaign, however, proved costly to the house of the chief. At
the battle of Falkirk in January, 1746, Sir Robert himself fell, with his
brother Dr. Munro. So greatly were they respected that the Jacobite
victors, after the battle, buried them with military honours in Falkirk
churchyard. The fate of Sir Robert’s other brother, George Munro of
Culcairn, was not less tragic. After Culloden, at which the clan took part
in full force, the Highland clans were ordered to deliver up their arms.
In fulfilment of this order one of the Jacobite clansmen, Dugald Roy
Cameron, sent his son to Fort William to surrender some weapons. As the
young man passed down Loch Arkaig, he was met by a party of soldiers under
an officer named Grant, by whom he was seized and forthwith shot. Vowing
vengeance upon the slayer of his son, who, he learned, rode a white horse,
Dugald Roy lay in wait behind a rock above Loch Arkaig for the officer’s
return. By and by, as the troop came back, he took careful aim at the
officer riding the white horse and shot him dead. Unfortunately, however,
Captain Munro had borrowed the horse, and it was he who was shot instead
of Grant. On learning his mistake Dugald Roy gave up his vengeance, and
became a soldier in the Government service.

Sir Robert’s son, Sir
Harry Munro, seventh baronet and twenty-fifth Chief, was an eminent
scholar and Member of Parliament. His son, Sir Hugh, left no heir to the
baronetcy, and was succeeded by his kinsman Charles Munro of Culraine,
lineal male descendant of Lieutenant-General Sir George Munro, next
brother of the third baronet. Sir Charles served with high credit under
Wellington in Portugal, Spain, and France, and was wounded at the storming
of Badajos. He also distinguished himself under Bolivar in the South
American War of Independence, and commanded a division at the battle of
Agnotmar, where the Spanish army surrendered to the Colombian general. The
present Chief, Sir Hector Munro of Foulis, eleventh baronet and
twenty-ninth laird, is his grandson. Among his other honours he is A.D.C.
to the King and Lord-Lieutenant of Ross and Cromarty.

Among its cadets the house
includes the family represented by Sir Hugh Munro, Bart., of Lindertis, in
Forfarshire. This family is descended through younger sons from the Foulis
chief who fought at Harlaw. Its immediate ancestor was General Sir Thomas
Munro, Governor of Madras from 1820 to 1827, whose father, a wealthy
Glasgow Virginia merchant, was ruined by the American War of Independence
in 1776. The General’s sister became the wife of the Hon. Henry Erskine,
the famous Scottish lawyer and wit.

Another distinguished cadet
was Sir Hector Munro of Novar, also an eminent Indian commander. He is
said to have spent £120,000 in improving his estate on the Cromarty
Firth. He died unmarried, but left three natural children. Of these the
elder son Hugh, an officer in India, was killed by a tiger, and the
younger, Alexander, was devoured by a shark, both in their father’s
lifetime. The daughter, Jane, married Colonel Sir Ronald Crauford Ferguson
of Raith near Kirkcaldy, and her grandson is the present Right Hon. Sir
Ronald Crauford Munro-Ferguson, P.C., G.C.M.G., of Raith and Novar, late
Governor-General of Australia, created Lord Novar in 1921, and now
Secretary for Scotland.

The clan has also a
distinguished representative in literature in the person of Dr. Neil Munro
the Celtic novelist, of the Loch Fyneside sept of the name; in archeology
by the late Dr. Robert Munro, the eminent authority on lake-dwellings; and
in politics by the Right Hon. Robert Munro, K.C., P.C., late Secretary for
Scotland, now Lord Justice Clerk of the Court of Session, under the title
of Lord Alness.

The
Munroes claim to be early natives of Scotland who were driven out by the Romans around 357
A.D. and took refuge in Ireland. At the beginning of the 11th century, the clan supposedly
returned to help expel the Danes, or Norsemen, from Scotland. They were under the
leadership of Donald, son of O'Caenn who, for his services received the lands of East
Dingwell in Ross-shire. These lands la ter became the Barony of Foulis, and thereafter the
chief and his family were designated "of Foul is". The clan spread into
Sutherland and were also given a charter for lands in Strathspey in 1309. The chiefs were
Bailies to the Macdonalds, Earls of Ross and Lords of the Isles. Robert of Foulis
supported Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314. Robert Mor, 15th chief was a staunch
supporter of Mary Queen of Scots and he received many favours from her son James VI.
During the 17th century, the Munroes fought in the continental wars and Robert 18th chief
joined the army of Gustavus Adolphus, raising 700 of his own clan for service in Sweden
and Denmark in defence of protestantism. He greatly distinguished himself and his Scots
received the name of the "Invincibles". The Munroes supported the government
during the Jacobite uprisings and it was Munro of Foulis who was one of the original
commanders of the six independent companies when they were raised in 1725. In 1740 when
the companies of the "Black Watch" were formed into the 43rd (and later 42nd)
Regiment, Sir Robert Munro, 6th Bart was appointed Lieutenant Colonel. This tradition of
distinction in military service was to continue throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
Captain Patrick Munro of Foulis had the family seat of Foulis castle in Ross-shire and
after his death c1990's Hector Munro succeeded him as Chief of the Clan.

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